As you may recall, I fell into a creek during my trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway earlier this year. This picture is the reason why.

You see, I took some shots of the creek and then saw the flowers on the other side. Perhaps it would be a better picture, I thought, if I could get those flowers in the foreground. So I tiptoed my way across to the opposite bank, but lost my balance and fell in halfway across. Thanks to my instinctive sense of self-preservation, however, I sacrificed my body in order to keep the camera from getting wet.

In retrospect, the obvious question is: why didn’t I just take off my shoes and walk across normally? Beats me. That sure would have been smart.

The other question is: was it worth it? I would say probably not, since the flowers aren’t prominent enough to make a big enough difference. But your mileage may vary.

May 7, 2019 — Otter Creek, Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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